Author’s note: “Paris Is Still Burning” is the first in a series of op-eds on queer history that will appear on this blog. It will feature both local (ie, Atlantic Canadian) historical content (and context) and larger historical events.

It’s 1990, and I am a kid living in rural Nova Scotia watching Siskel & Ebert. It’s a Saturday afternoon and they are talking about a recent documentary. All of a sudden, a black drag queen in a gold lamé dress, with puffed sleeves that are bigger than a tire, is on the television. Off screen, someone is yelling for everyone to get off the floor. “Learn it, and learn it well,” they say.

What I am learning is that there is a world out there.

It’s been more than 20 years since Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning was released. The film depicts the lives of a group of predominantly black and Latino gay men and transgender women living in New York City during the late '80s. They are members of “houses,” congregations and fraternities who battle each other during balls or pageants, competing in various categories in which they emulate certain ideals of straight society. Executive realness anyone?

The film is also known for being one of the few detailed portraits of voguing during its initial heyday. Although people may have been acquainted with the term and elements of the dance thanks to Madonna, Paris Is Burning took an academic and sociological glance at what was mostly viewed as a dancefloor fad.

Twenty years later, the film still resonates in the queer community. I have conversations with young queers who were barely out of diapers when the film came out yet can recite great lengths of dialogue from it. They can read someone or throw shade, having been taught by no less than Dorian Corey and Venus Xtravaganza.

But the balls and voguing did not go the way of the gay dinosaur. They simply went back underground, and new generations of houses have come about, while some of the old stalwarts still hear the names ring out during the balls. The House of Ninja and the House of Xtravaganza are two that still produce dancers and voguers who will leave you gagging.

Fast forward to the 1:27 mark.

For a white kid from a middle-class family living in a fishing village of 300 people, you would think I had nothing in common with anyone or anything on that screen. But I felt a kinship and a sense of belonging. I wanted to be like them: these were people who dreamed themselves into existence, even when reality was trying to shake them awake into living nightmares. Once in a while, in front of all their peers, they could be whoever and whatever they wanted. And that gave a shy and closeted kid a lot of hope.

  *

Addendum: Jennie Livingston, the director of Paris Is Burning is still making films. She is currently looking to make a film about the subject of death and identity. You can find out more on her Kickstarter site.

Butch Queen Bonus: In 2010, Cabin Fever Records put out a 12-inch recording called “Shade,” by The Realness. This quasi-bootleg record samples dialogue from the film in a booty-shaking, duck-walking track.

A must for those who want to be real.

This Saturday evening, Halifax will become one giant art gallery and performance space.

The impetus behind this is a public art festival called Nocturne, which is now in its fourth year. Starting at the stroke of six and continuing until midnight, art lovers can stroll through five designated zones: Downtown Halifax, the Halifax Waterfront, Spring Garden Road, North End Halifax and Downtown Dartmouth. Events will happen everywhere from public to private spaces, from galleries to Citadel Hill. There’s even an app to help you organize your evening and map out your route.

If you’re looking for a decidedly queer bent during Nocturne, you may want to walk down to the corner of South Park and Sackville, at the CBC Radio Room. There, Krista Davis and Cari Tengedal, along with Kim Sheppard and Nolan Natasha, will present their very own peepshow.

Image courtesy of OUTeast

The show is sponsored by OUTeast, and true to its bombastic and cinematic lineage, the peep show will be a mix of performance and video.

“I’ve been carrying around the idea of the peepshow as a format to present video for a while,” says Davis. “Nowadays, a peepshow usually refers to the presentation of a sex show or pornographic images; however, different variations of the peepshow have been around for hundreds of years as a form of public storytelling.”

According to Davis, Nocturne is a perfect space for presenting art in a different and public format. “I love coming across art unexpectedly -- in crevices or alleyways or holes in walls. It's like getting let in on a little secret,” she points out. “And I'm nosy, so I find the idea of peepshows quite intriguing.”

Davis’s piece with Tengedal will be presented as an installation in the CBC Radio Room, allowing the public to view it through the large street-level windows. It will alternate with another piece done by Sheppard and Natasha. As to what audiences can expect, Davis is tentative and tight-lipped. “I won't reveal Kim's piece,” she hints, “but ours is titled Neither Science Nor Magic Took Responsibility. It is an animated story of an old lady suffering from an unknown illness that is slowly breaking apart her body.” The presentation will not be a one-time-only event. According to Davis, it will be the start of OUTeast’s public screening series, called Queer Film in Public Spaces: The OUTeast peepIN project. “The peepshow was one of the precursors to cinema,” she says. “This screening series is a precursor to our festival. It's a little metaphor.”

For more information about Nocturne, check out their website at nocturnehalifax.ca.

If you want to find out more about OUTeast, you can find their website at outeastfilmfest.com.

Author's note: Although this blog will predominantly discuss events that are happening in Atlantic Canada's queer community, it will also, on occasion, deal with larger issues at hand. 

 

It started with an email from a friend of mine.

“Donny done died.”

Donny was in his early 20s when he contracted HIV. He had a hard time dealing with his HIV status, as well as other issues, both mental and physical. Donny knew that, statistically speaking, he could live for quite a while. But he wondered whether he wanted to. And I wondered if I wanted to write about his death or not.

The jury is still out on whether journalists should discuss suicide in the media, specifically when it is the cause (or the decision that led to, if you want to be a stickler about it) of death. In a world where queer teen suicides are being more and more openly discussed, it becomes an ethical quandary for journos. It has been argued that to disclose death by suicide is to glamorize the death of an individual in a public spotlight, a tactic that, according to some, may lead others to follow in their footsteps. Do we write about what is happening and address the issue, or do we circumvent it and report “just the facts”?

Well, here are “the facts” in Donny’s death, according to a local Texas paper:

***

According to police officials, a Pontiac Solstice being driven by 32-year-old Franklin May was travelling eastbound on US 80 when his vehicle left the roadway near the exit ramp to southbound I-635. The vehicle became airborne, flew over an embankment and then struck the outer guardrail on southbound I-635. The vehicle crossed all lanes of southbound I-635 and struck the centre concrete divider. Debris from the vehicle struck two other vehicles that were travelling northbound on I-635.

May was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene by officials from the Dallas County Medical Examiner's office. May was the sole occupant of the vehicle and there were no other injuries reported as a result of the accident. Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the vehicle to leave the roadway. (The italics are mine)

****

Franklin (Donny) May wrote this on his Facebook wall the day before:

“I used to love you. Maybe coulda change the course of both or our lives. Now I drive into the support beans of an underpass.”

He said shit like that all the time.

This is the same guy who talked about snorting Valium off Chuck Liddell’s ass. The guy who lived unapologetically. A self-described “short, stout, loud-mouthed, hairy, scary, sweaty, horny, friendly little guy from the deep south,” Donny was amazing. It’s hard to eulogize someone who would write “DOOOD I have not had Valium in a while. Wow. I JUST LIT THE WRONG END OF A CIGARETTE! WHO WANTS TO GO SWIMMING?!?!?”” or “Note to self: next time you have $200 to burn, do NOT go to IKEA for moar furniturz. GET A FUCKING PASSPORT. Also: don't forget to douche.”

My friendship with Donny consisted of chat logs and late-night phone calls. He’d be blazing out on some highway in the middle of the southern US, talking about how he loved Condoleezza Rice because “she was such a cunt.” He was unapologetic for being a highly sexual person. For being what he would often describe as “a hot mess.” This is a guy who once said on his (now defunct) blog, “So HERE I AM, YA STUPID CUNTS. Random hookups with hot guys make me happy. Meaningful emotional bonds make me happy. Nachos make me happy, and good spellers make my dick hard.”

It’s hard to eulogize someone who would finish conversations with “plz douche kthxbye.” I am not here to glamorize the death of someone who took his own life. There is nothing glamorous in a news brief about someone you know who was ejected across the pavement. There is nothing glamorous when someone feels the need to “drive into the support beams of an underpass.” I am not angry with Donny, or his reasons, or his decisions. But I’m not happy. And I don’t know whether I did the right thing in discussing his death. But I did it because I believe that it is best to bring things to light, rather than be shushed and mystified.

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day.

It was also the first day of this blog, so unfortunately, I was unable to post anything about it.

I was 17 when I came out. I was living in rural Nova Scotia and it was 1993. I remember writing down the date in my journal: Oct 11, 2011 – kids those days had journals, not blogs – and only as an adult did I find out about the strange synchronicity of that event. I’ve now been out for more than half of my life. Even though coming out is often an intensely personal and private matter, in the end, it is about public visibility. And if it weren’t for others that I met who had come out, I don’t know if I would have been able to do it when I did, and in the manner in which I did: with confidence.

My thanks to them.

*

In keeping with the theme of “coming out,” well then come one, and come all to the 2011 Halifax Pride annual general meeting.

The meeting takes place between 7 and 9pm at the Residence Inn Marriott, at 1599 Grafton St (across from Maxwell’s Plum), in the Piccadilly Room on the main floor. The meeting will discuss and vote on new bylaws. You can read them here (with thanks to Daniel MacKay for posting these on Gay Halifax).

And for something on the lighter side, I’d like to share with you something that came across my desktop this morning.

Image via Gawker.

 

Happy belated Coming Out Day!

Introductions are never easy, especially online.

Hi, I’m Simon.

Xtra recently gave me the opportunity to start a daily blog on xtra.ca, called Down East, about what’s happening on Canada’s East Coast. I was asked to write an introductory post, to give readers a sense of who I am and what I will be writing about.

It’s almost like filling out an application form on a dating site:

Name: Simon Thibault.

Height: 5’9”

Age: None of your business.

Weight: You should know better than to ask…

Please include a picture to ensure maximum views.

Okay then...



Interests: (In no particular order) queer politics, gender theory, transgender concepts, pornography, subcultures, performance, comics, arts, queer rural living, queer youth, queer history, etc, etc.

Your bio:

My name is Simon Thibault and I write.

I write about a lot of things. Thanks to xtra.ca, I will be writing a lot more.

As in everyday.

Here, I hope to discuss and give light to events, people and happenings in various cities, towns and areas in Atlantic Canada.  

So does that fulfill my introductory quota?

Enough about me; tell me about you. I’d like to hear from you, my fellow East Coasters. What are you doing? What are your upcoming events? Where are they happening? Or do you have an interesting story? Did something catch your ear? Let me know.

You can contact me at twitter.com/simonathibault or at xtradowneast@gmail.com.